Contractor Profile: Trouble is His Business ~

Contractor Profile: Trouble is His Business ~

In a perfect world, David Festa, owner of David J. Festa
Carpentry in Forked River, N.J., would have less work to do.
That’s because a significant chunk of Festa’s
business these days is stepping in to rescue projects that have
gotten into trouble. You could say that trouble is
Festa’s business — or at least part of
it.
Here’s one example from Festa’s website.
This partially framed house (photos below) was abandoned in
2008 after not one, not two, but three different builders tried
to complete it, but stopped before the job was done.
“The first floor walls were built, and then it sat for
a few months,” Festa explains. “Then the
second floor walls were built, and then it sat for a few
months. Then the roof was built, and it sat for a few
months.” Festa’s not sure who to blame for
any of that — the owner’s money troubles may
lie at the heart of the matter, he says. Whatever the reason,
the incomplete frame stood exposed to the elements for two
years before Festa agreed to correct framing errors and button
up the job. “I came in and we finished off the
framing, we sheathed it, we roofed it, replaced a steel beam
because the previous beam was installed incorrectly —
and then he ran out of money again.”
That story doesn’t have a happy ending, says Festa.
The house continued to sit empty, and eventually squatters and
vandals made a mess of it. “That house got
foreclosed,” says Festa. “The neighbors
complained about the smell of mold and other worse things, and
then it finally got condemned last week.” But Festa
made out okay, he says: “I made money on it,
that’s for sure. I didn’t get
beat.”
In another case, a foreclosed house turned into an
opportunity for Festa: a job doing extensive structural
repairs. “The previous owner had an illegal bathroom,
bedroom, and kitchen in the basement,” explains Festa.
“The house got foreclosed, so the bank had to rip all
that out in order to re-sell the house. Well, the company that
came in and did it just ripped everything out and
didn’t re-support the main girder of the house. And
the house actually sank in the center — three inches.
So we had to jack the whole center of the house up, rip out the
existing girders, and replace them with a Parallam. But while
we were at it, they asked, ‘Why do we have two living
rooms upstairs? Why not make one big living room?’ So
we ended up removing that partition and installing a new Better
Header girder to open that room up.”
But doesn’t Festa worry about liability issues for
himself when he takes over a job already pre-loaded with
defects created by previous owners or contractors? Festa says,
“Typically, I get approval from an architect. I
won’t even touch the job until I’ve sat down
with an architect and an engineer and said to them,
‘Look, this is what I suggest we do to fix this. Is
that okay?’ I have the engineer rewrite everything and
say what we’re going to do. That way I am protected by
the architect’s and the engineer’s liability
insurance and I’m following their scope of
work.”
Not every engineer is familiar with the kind of work Festa
does, however. As he points out, it’s important to
work with an engineer who knows the territory. “The
trick is to find a residential
architect/slash/engineer,” says Festa. “You
can’t just find an architect or just find an engineer.
It’s gotta be a residential architect who’s
also an engineer.” Festa consults the same
professional on all his jobs: an architect-engineer named Scott
Lepley, who does business in the Barnegat Bay area as Lepley
Design Group.
By using that cautious approach and relying on his own
experience at solving problems, Festa has found that trouble
can be an endless source of opportunity. “I’m
actually about to sign a contract tomorrow with a customer
where the previous owner of the house hired a contractor to do
a second floor addition on their home,” he says.
“They gave the money to the contractor, he built the
second floor addition, the building inspector drove by and said
‘Where’s the permit in the window?’
… and after that, the general contractor was never to
be heard from again. Well come to find out, he never pulled a
permit. So they forced the previous owner to hire an engineer
to have drawings made up and present them to the township.
Well, come to find out, there is no foundation under this
house. This is one of those bungalows built in the 1950s in New
Jersey, and it’s literally just built on the ground.
There’s four inches of concrete, and they built the
house on it. So they built a whole second floor addition on
this house with no foundation, and it’s already
starting to settle. So the township condemned the house
— they said, ‘You can’t live in it.
It’s going to collapse.’ And I don’t
know if the previous owners sold the house, or it got
foreclosed, but the township is making the new owners rip the
second floor addition off and put the roof back on it, the way
it was.”
For Festa, this horror show is more than just a good job
— it’s also tailor-made for his marketing
message: “Be careful who you hire — because
you never know what is going to happen.”